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Annan Suggests Iraq Be Allowed
To More Than Double Its Oil Sales

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan recommended Monday that the Security Council more than double the amount of oil Iraq is allowed to sell.

In a report to the 15-member council, the secretary-general proposed Iraq be permitted to sell $5.2 billion of oil every six months. The current six-month ceiling is $2.14 billion.

The United States ambassador to the U.N., Bill Richardson, traveling in Lisbon, declined to say if the U.S. would support the specific $5.2 billion figure Mr. Annan had suggested, but did express general support for some kind of increase.

"In principle we are ready to support an expansion of the program on humanitarian grounds," Mr. Richardson said.

Iraq has been barred from unrestricted oil sales since August 1990, when the council imposed sweeping sanctions to punish Baghdad for invading Kuwait. After a U.S.-led coalition drove Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the council decided to maintain the sanctions until Iraq destroyed its weapons of mass destruction.

Sanctions were relaxed in December 1996 to allow limited exports to buy food and medicine for Iraq's 22 million people, as well as pay reparations to Gulf War victims and finance U.N. weapons monitoring.

But U.N. agencies say the amount of food and medicine is too low to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people. A growing number of countries are questioning the policy that punishes ordinary people who have little say in government policy.

Mr. Annan suggested that Iraq will need about $3.55 billion in aid every six months, which would require the oil-sale exports to increase to about $5.2 billion every six months.

But international oil experts surveyed by Dow Jones on Monday said Iraq is incapable of exporting enough oil to raise $5.2 billion in six months. Experts suggested Iraq is able to export only some $4.3 billion in oil during that period.

In other developments Monday:

Iraq's U.N. envoy said Baghdad will invite Washington to arrange U.S. congressional delegations to stay at presidential palaces that have been declared off-limits to U.N. weapons inspectors. The speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Saadoon Hammadi, will send a letter to U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich by facsimile extending the invitation, said Iraqi ambassador to the U.N. Nizar Hamdoon.

Britain said it is preparing a draft U.N. resolution insisting that Baghdad grant U.N. weapons inspectors "full and unrestricted access" to suspected weapons sites. The Foreign Office refused to say whether the resolution would declare Iraq to be in "material breach" of a U.N. resolution demanding it dismantle its major weapons programs -- setting the legal foundation for military action.

Israel deployed batteries of Patriot missiles in the Negev Desert and asked to buy millions of doses of antidotes to biological weapons from the U.S. A wave of panic has swept the Israeli public since the chief U.N. weapons inspector said last week that Saddam Hussein could wipe out Tel Aviv with biological weapons.

President Clinton spoke with Russian President Boris Yeltsin for about 20 minutes about the continuing stand-off with Iraq, according to White House Spokesman Mike McCurry. The two leaders discussed "the situation in Iraq and the seriousness of the Iraq's failure to comply with the relevant United Nations mandates," Mr. McCurry said. He added that Mr. Clinton made it clear to Mr. Yeltsin that he believes "the time for diplomacy is now rapidly expiring."